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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23010418">In Search of a Co-Captain</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishharlan16/pseuds/fishharlan16'>fishharlan16</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Monster of the Week (Tabletop RPG)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Immortality, Magic, Pirates, Teri Stratford is gonna do a lot of things, Werewolves, and some light property damage, but for now just some magic, many will not be legal</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 10:33:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,201</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23010418</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishharlan16/pseuds/fishharlan16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Teri Stratford misses their friend dearly. Luckily, it's nothing a little piracy and magic can't solve.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>In Search of a Co-Captain</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Teri Stratford has forgotten more about magic than most people will learn in their entire lifetime. There are a number of reasons for this. First, most people do not learn magic. They simply do not have the aptitude for it. Second, Teri is an immortal werewolf, and has therefore known many things. Third, and perhaps most importantly, Teri is an idiot. They forget half the things they learn anyway. But they are an idiot who knows magic.</p>
<p>The crew of the <em> Emissary </em> is used to having a magical idiot as captain, though it was certainly easier when there were two magical individuals balance each other out. As it was, the angel Azarias had been pulled from the ship during a freak storm and Teri Stratford was left to captain the ship alone. For a while, life was essentially business-as-usual. Some smuggling, some blatant piracy, the occasional supernatural encounter, general life on the high seas. But Teri missed their friend dearly and wished to be reunited. So they began the search for a proper spell to reunite the co-captains.</p><hr/>
<p>As with most of Teri’s problems, piracy gave them a solution. While raiding a Portuguese galleon, the crew came across a chest belonging to a magical scholar bearing the name Vilar de Sá. Inside was a magical tome containing a number of interesting spells, most importantly one of tracking and one of transportation. Unfortunately, Teri is illiterate. Fortunately, members of the crew are not. The crew might be less magically inclined than their captain, but they simply need to be able to explain the instructions. And so, with some help, Teri Stratford began quite the journey.</p>
<p>“Captain, I don’t mean to be second guessing ye, but are ye sure that these ingredients are in the correct amounts?” Winston asked. It was a reasonable question. The transportation spell had to be heavily modified to account for the ship and crew. Even so, Teri had every confidence the spell would function.</p>
<p>“Winston, I have every confidence the spell will function,” Teri responded and clapped the crewman on the shoulder. Sitting on the deck in front of them was a combination of increasingly exotic ingredients, ranging from bottles of volcanic sand, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, a series of sea glass pieces, hundreds of feet of rope soaked in the blood of a phoenix, and a cyclops skull.</p>
<p>The seasoning was not important for the spell, but Teri thought it smelled nice.</p>
<p>Teri wrapped the rope firmly through the cyclops’ eyehole and tossed a pinch of the volcanic sand into the air. Before it could completely scatter, they threw the end of the rope into the center of the sand and the rope pulled taut.</p>
<p>“Stations, crew! We have a heading! Our port, wherever Azarias has found himself. Ready the sails and watch for storms!” Teri shouted and bounded up the steps to stand at the wheel. The cyclops skull would keep the rope grounded, but they could not risk letting the rift escape.</p>
<p>It didn’t take long before the sea glass began to shake and the winds picked up. A storm from nowhere began to knock the ship to and fro. But before Teri could correct the <em> Emissary’s </em> course, the sea glass shot over the bow of the ship and seemed to pull the storm with it.</p>
<p>“It’s been a pleasure sailing with you all, and I will enjoy seeing you all on the other side!” Teri called as the entire ship was pulled through a rift into an entirely different timeline.</p><hr/>
<p>When Teri opened their eyes, they were at first unsure if the spell had even worked. They seemed to be in the exact same spot. There was that island, just where it had been when the storm had hit. The ship was entirely intact. There were those two groups of naval ships in open combat directly on either side of the <em> Emissary </em>.</p>
<p>No, wait. Hang on just a moment. The two groups of naval ships were new. <em> Those certainly had not been there before </em>, Teri thought to themself as a cannonball past mere inches over his head.</p>
<p>“We’ve done it, crew! Full sails ahead! And don’t worry for these warring ships on our sides. I’m sure they’ll let us pass without trouble,” Teri called, again narrowly dodging another shot that came to them. “Or not. Full sails still! We shall fight our way out if it should come to a fight!”</p>
<p>It was, indeed, coming to a fight. What Teri Stratford had not realized was that the ship had seemingly appeared from nowhere directly between a group of British privateers and French trading vessels. Not only was this interaction coming to a fight, it had already been a fight. The only reason the <em> Emissary </em> was not pure flotsam was pure dumb luck. Fortunately, that sort of pure dumb luck was exactly where Teri Stratford best operated.</p>
<p>As the sails of the ship spread to catch the wind, the opposing ships began to truly open fire on each other with the poor <em> Emissary </em> caught in between. Teri thought quickly and steered the ship into a sharp turn. In most circumstances, this particular maneuver would have resulted in the <em> Emissary </em> ramming full speed into one of the ships currently firing upon them.</p>
<p>“Captain, we’re aiming to be ramming full speed into one of the ships currently firing on us!” Winston called out as he realized the heading.</p>
<p>“Don’t worry, Winston! I know exactly what I’m doing! I’m going to ram full speed into one of the ships currently firing upon us!” Captain Teri Stratford called to his crewman.</p>
<p>The <em> Emissary </em> then proceeded to ram full speed into one of the ships currently firing upon them.</p>
<p>For most captains, this is a suicide run. Not only is the opposing ship going to fire into the hull of the ramming ship, but the damage of ramming can be enough to scuttle most vessels. However, Teri Stratford is not most captains. Teri Stratford is an immortal magic pirate werewolf. And Teri Stratford is exceptionally lucky.</p>
<p>The <em> Emissary </em> struck a British ship on it’s port side. The British ship happened to be in the process of loading the cannons when they were struck, thereby saving the <em> Emissary </em> from more cannonfire. And they struck at such an angle that they simply carved across the bow rather than plow through the hardened hull. This led to the British ship striking another in the line, giving just enough of an opening for the <em> Emissary </em> to slip through. And they had specifically struck a British ship, which won them some respect from the French.</p>
<p>All this to say, the <em> Emissary </em> had managed to evade destruction or capture at the hands of two sailing groups from an entirely separate timeline. It was not until they were sailing for Havana that the gravity of the situation had truly struck the crew. The spell had worked, to an extent. They were in the correct timeline. Teri was sure of that. But Azarias was nowhere to be found. So something was still not quite right.</p>
<p>Teri would simply have to wait to find their friend. But with immortality and rum, they could wait as long as they needed.</p>
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